Folk /
Cherlokalate
Effervescent songbird JANE WEAVE unveils a canon of femme-folk, laden with finger picked meandering melodies, ethereal harmonies and wistful leanings. In the same vei as acid folk such as Linda Perhacs and Karen Dalton, this decade spanning collection traces a line between the acid-soaked protest rumblings of yesteryear and the forward/backward facing revivalists of today.
America
Originally released in 1971, this is one of the artistic high points of his career. And yet, for nearly 30 years it was not heard in its entirety, as what was originally intended as a double album was pared down to a single LP. Now, thanks to 4 Men With Beards, the complete double album is available on vinyl for the first time
Distillation
As one cog in the leaderless wheel known as the No-Neck Blues Band, Dave Shuford makes music so thoroughly unplanned that even he and his bandmates can't predict what it will sound like. NNCK don't just improvise, they don't even discuss what they're going to play, traversing many styles and moods with no safety net save the one that emerges from their collective creativity. Compared to NNCK's free-form tightrope-walk, Shuford's side project D. Charles Speer and the Helix can sound downright ris…
Empty The Sun
BOOK + CD: A novel by Joseph Mattson featuring music by SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE. Available in First Trade Paperback Edition with CD soundtrack and as a limited edition vinyl LP soundtrack with Large Format Book. “Here I was, doing ninety on the Santa Monica Freeway with a quart of whiskey shoved into my crotch and my dead neighbor in the trunk. It had come time to leave Los Angeles.” Thus begins the pre-apocalyptic, cross-country race with death to bury the murdered past in Joseph Mattson’s Emp…
Still Some Light
legendary Bill Fay released two brilliant but poor-selling albums between 1967 and 1971 before disappearing from the public eye. He spent much of the following decade writing, rehearsing, and occasionally performing--all with no contract or record company support. In recent years, reissues of his now-sought-after original albums along with a pair of releases containing previously unreleased material have renewed interest in the English artist. Coptic Cat is pleased to announce the release of Fay…
Memories from the age of the Dragon
Restocked - AWESOME!! Lavishly packaged in a heavy textured cover, red vinyl, troglosound art, 3 different inner sleeves (gold/red/green), "Memories from the age of the Dragon" with david vanzan percussion, voice, bow harp, bass, anologue electronics virginia genta soprano sax, ocarina, flutes, marimba box, bells maurizio abate kalimba, zither, hurdy gurdy, tape delay
Mortika: Recordings From A Greek Underworld
Absolutely incredible boxed 2LP package from the ever-wonderful Mississippi label bringing together some choice Greek Rembetica - do not miss! Always keeping listeners on their toes, Mississippi Records takes a sharp derivé into the world of underground Greek folk music, featuring 21 fascinating songs about drugs, sex, crime, poverty and heartbreak compiled by Tony Klein. Sometimes called 'Rembetica' and/or 'Greek Oriental Music', this music was the idiomatic folk outlet of Greek musicians in th…
Stone Academy
The latest addition to the fast-growing Digitalis catalogue comes from Zelienople, a band from Chicago who have a certain knack of making that other-worldly folk ambience we've all grown so addicted to sound totally singular and incredibly beautiful. Maybe it's because they aren't afraid of occasionally breaching into the odd pop structure or two that 'Stone Academy' is so inviting, in fact if you hear it at a distance you might even mistake it for a decomposed cassette recording of an old Pavem…
Simulacrum
On his third outing, Jozef Van Wissem, with his ten-course Renaissance lute (aka retrograde lute), employs not only his notion of using palindromes and backwards reading of music for the instrument, but also brings electronics and field recordings into the discussion. Van Wissem applies mirror images in compositions for solo lute. He inserts a microphone into the body of his lute, records the sounds inside (known as "wolftones"), and then electronically alters them by sampling, cutting, and past…
O True Believers
Like most of his previous work, O True Believers may be born of a finite moment of hope in a sea of infinite sadness, a fleeting moment of fragile beauty that extends beyond it's physicality. Unlike past albums, the listener's feeling upon conclusion is more ambiguous: there is no happy and immediate resolution, as if ghosts of the past will find themselves resurfacing time and time again in the future, an idea which is reflected in several reoccurring themes within the songs themselves. Colourf…
A Year In The Kingdom
Since Joshua Tillman had his profile raised by association with Seattle folk favourites Fleet Foxes, whose drumsticks he wields, he hasn't exactly been making an attention-seeking racket in his solo career. In contrast to Fleet Foxes' dawn-chorus harmonising, Tillman favours a spare style, and his sixth solo album may be the year's most subdued record. "I possess a taste for blood. I have numbered mankind's days," the 28-year-old murmurs on "There Is no Good in Me", throwing in a reference to fi…
Ex Patris
The title Ex Patris (from the fathers) plays on the idiomatic baroque lute compositions presented here which emulate the classical repertoire. It also refers to this almost forgotten instrument, which was passed on by the fathers. The aim is to bring back and liberate the lute. The four compositions on Ex Patris form a circular narrative of interlocking repetitive melodic series. The follow up to Important release “ It is all that is made” kicks off with the pro apocalyptic track “The Day is Com…
Boerum Palace
Steve Gunn's prodigious talent for fusing traditional American song structures with a raga influence is almost criminally unheralded. Gunn's songcraft is so strong and his playing style so effortlessly beautiful that folks should be shouting his name from every tall building and mountaintop. It is with such high esteem for the man's work that Three Lobed Recordings is humbled by the association and thrilled to announce the release of Boerum Palace by Steve Gunn. Without any doubt, Boerum Palace …
Luminous Night
CD edition: Luminous Night is the first set of new Six Organs Of Admittance material to leap forth from Ben Chasnys' cerebral cortex in 18 months, and what a joy it is. With the release of odds-and-sods collection RTZ earlier in the year there to bridge the gap between 2007s Shelter From The Ash it doesn't seem like he's been away for long per se but for serious Chasny-heads a new album is something to get pretty excited about and with his other musical outlet Comets On Fire either on extended h…
Gilberto Gil
2009 repress. First ever U.S. reissue of this album, with new liner notes by Peter Margasak. Released in 1971 while Gil was living in London, this is the third self-titled release from the bossa nova and tropicalia legend. Gil recorded this album while in political exile from his native Brazil and its somber, straightforward tone is a welcome change from the experimental, psychedelic assault of his 1969 long player. Featuring 8 originals and a brilliant cover Steve Winwood's 'Can't Find My Way H…
Six Organs Of Admittance
Rare 1998 LP reissued on CD with two rarer bonus tracks, all on CD for the first time. In 1998 Ben Chasny self-released an LP of his 'acoustic based project[ions]' under the name Six Organs of Admittance. The resulting five-song LP is a masterpiece of diverse elements using acoustic and electric guitars, a detuned violin, organ, electronics and koto. The material covers a lot of ground: there's an acid folk duet, an epic, three-part space suite, and two short concrète-like pieces that entice hid…
How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life
2009 reprint, originally published in 2000. John Fahey is feared and revered around the world as a guitar player and composer. His inventions for acoustic and electric strings are the stuff of legend. Since he began recording in Maryland in the late 1950s, Mr. Fahey's access to the unknown tongue has been made manifest on over 30 albums, and his presence has unsettled audiences from here to Tasmania. He has served as a spiritual model for guitarists as disparate as Leo Kottke and Thurston Moore.…
Icarus
This 1972 classic captures saxophonist Paul Winter and his ensemble at the height of their improvisational powers. Winter was one of the first artists to incorporate such exotic instruments as the sitar and tabla into his music and the result was memorable chamber jazz-folk played in the wonderfully experimental, post-hippie way only Winter and his merry band could. The title track, one of guitarist Ralph Towner's compositions, became famous for its pensive melody and soaring soprano sax. "Whole…
School Of The Flower
Ben Chasny (COMETS ON FIRE) might beat you if you call his solo work folk music. Hypnotic, mesmerizing, full of rough edges & elliptical turns round & round. First studio record from the highly prolific Chasny, joined by free-jazz sensation CHRIS CORSANO on drums & absolutely no computers. Chasny says "I see my music as being much more from the underground class of '92 than this folk scene...it has the same rock to folk quotient as Zep 3...Rock is the new folk & folk fucked rock without the reac…
The Visitor
Breathing in, breathing out. Tide comes in, tide goes out. The sun rises and it also sets: beginnings and endings. These are the first impressions given by The Visitor: a build-up and break-down. One seamless, 38-minute piece of music that completely engages its listeners. An extremely thoughtful piece that even a year later, still retains all of the qualities it had upon first listen. This record made me realize the full potential music can have when someone who actually gives a damn does somet…